Multispectral Imaging and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

With recent technological advances, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) provide a unique platform to acquire remotely sensed data. UAV platforms have several advantages over traditional techniques, including price, resolution, data acquisition time, and overall utility. The Morton Arboretum currently has a suite of instrumentation to study and monitor tree health, including a Parrot Sequoia multispectral camera. Multispectral imagery enables calculation of vegetative indices that can be used to reveal information on crop stress, infestation, disease, and nutrient deficiencies. This sensor is currently implemented on a commercially sold DJI Phantom 4 drone on a fixed mount, i.e fixed camera angle. During data acquisition, it is often required to change that camera pitch angle to ensure the subject of interest is captured optimally. The objective of this project was to create a 1-degree of freedom camera mounting system for the Phantom 4 that can be controlled remotely from the ground control station to enable control of the camera pitch angle. To accomplish this, two arduino uno microcontrollers equipped with LoRa radio transreceivers are used to communicate wirelessly and control a servo motor attached to the camera. The control station also includes an LCD shield to set and display the current camera position